Thomas:
Reluctantly, I will allow this thread to get a little more lengthy as
holding the previous posts in memory often helps understand the current
answers/questions.
>At 03:48 AM 2/10/99 -0500, Thomas Lunde wrote:
>
>>Now, assuming a shortage of qualified personnel, I would expect every
>>training institute in the country to be offering courses in programming
>>languages to get people up to speed to work on Y2K problems. As most of
>>the
>>work, I have read, requires no great programming skill, rather it is the
>>reading of millions of lines of code looking for date sensitive code and
>>then applying replacement code, it would seem to me that many people could
>>be trained in a 3 month course to be a mini specialist in some aspect of a
>>computer language. As I look at the ads of training schools, I do not see
>>any offers for training to become a Y2K correction specialist and most
>>courses in their outlines do not even mention the need to become expert in
>>Y2K problems. Second question - what is going on in the training field to
>>supply those capable enough to work on this problem.
>>
>>I would appreciate some thoughts on these questions.
>
>
>Thomas,
-From: Abelito Tortuga Suizo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
GKD] Training Y2K Specialists
>
>You assume correctly. There *is* a shortage of skills to address the Y2K
>problem. This has been an oft-repeated fact in many publications in the web
>and elsewhere (I'll have to scavenge my files if you really need refs).
>This shortage is very acute in Asia, which is what is worrying the advanced
>countries. This shortage, I believe, is artificial, because skilled Asians
>have moved to the advanced countries in response to the great demand in
>that part of the world.
Thomas:
Well, of course, if all those "Asian" personnel moved back to their home
countries, then I assume there would be a manjor shortage in the United
States. The question posed is not allocation, it is regarding the
incongruency of up to a trillion dollars being budgeted for remedial work,
which by it very nature (reading millions of lines of arcane computer
language programs and making the appropriate changes) would seem to require
massive numbers of people who are trained in those languages, and capable of
making the appropriate changes. As we are down to the final 10 months
before the event horizon smacks us in the face, I am trying to access
whether there really is a problem or not by asking the obvious question -
have we got the people to do the job and if so, how would that become
apparent.
>
>Whatever the case, on the overall, the teachers left in training schools
>are those in the state-of-the-art hardware and software, areas which many
>would expect to be Y2K-safe. Understandably so, these schools would not be
>able to provide Y2K training courses since the veterans are already out
>there in the trenches.
Thomas:
Now this is really a worrisome statement. Even if we should need teachers,
they are not available because they are focused on problems past the event
horizon, the conclusion being that the Y2K event is already solved and the
future is assured. If this is so, why can we not get definitive proof that
this is so? Why are we still recieving many projections that the military,
the energy sector, the transportation sector, the financial sector, etc
still are not Y2K complaint?
>
>On the other hand, I would beg to disagree on your conception that there
>are what you termed "Y2K correction specialists." If you listen hard
>enough, the underpining feeling among Y2K remediators is still one of
>*doubt*. Truth is, no one is a Y2K expert since this is the first time
>we're facing this problem. Nobody in the Y2K business today can give a
>guarantee that their work will be fail-proof before, during and after the
>dreaded "event horizon." Ask them if they can tell what will exactly
>happen, and they will say, if they're honest enough, "I don't know."
Now it seems to me that you are arguing from both sides of the problem. On
the one hand, smile, be happy. On the other hand most of the "experts" just
don't know. I'm sorry, I want a more conclusive answer than that for myself
and my family.
>
>The best persons who can do Y2K risk assessment, contingency planning are
>those in the organization themselves. The "experts" can only help by asking
>us questions and allowing us to see other possibilities we may not have
>considered.
Assumming that you have personnel within organizations who can handle the
job, what happens to the work they are supposed to be doing but are not
doing because they are busy handling Y2K? Or were they just there
originally as sort of a corporate welfare for bright programmers? Now "risk
assessment" and "contingency planning" are very fine skills, but then comes
application and for that you need some guys to sit in front of terminals for
months at a time, making corrections and hoping that they are not making the
problem worse. I want to know about those guys? Do we have them? Do we
have a surplus? Or are there enough of them and everything is under
control?
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
>
>
>
>HTH,
>
>
>Abelito
>
>
>
